Greetings,

after strolling in this "PhD school", i realize many topics are not directly nor related to PhD. Only few topics really make sense. So may i know how many ppl here actually doing PhD? may i know in which university and your research interest? So that, we could actually discuss PhD topics and your research topics and hereby make this thread more "reliable" source for graduate students and for those interested to do PhD in future.

cheers


btw, if im not mistaken, Bro azriamy is a PhD holder in Education. am i right?

You got the wrong assumption. Its just a catchy name for a subforum. It doesnt serve mainly for phd level discussion.

Same like asking the people in "cupid corner" section, how many of the members are cupids? and how many had given cupid-quality replies to the threads there?

azriamy is doing his phd in architecture..he's a lecturer in UTM...
How about TS start the ball rolling by letting us know your details 1st?

owh, so its just a catchy name. Well my bad then.


@highwind85, architecture? cool, yeah now i do remember he mentions about archie stuff. Well for me, im just recently doing my PhD in Nottingham Malaysia, my focus is on Artificial Intelligence. Gonna use Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Support Vector Machine (SVM) or Kalman Filtering, basically i will use these methods to predict disaster before it happens. My focus more on landslides and concrete structures (deformations on concrete structures like what happened in MRR2). Basically will use those method to monitor and predict when the disaster will struck so we could warn the community.

Well that a brief about my topic. Hopefully if anyone have related topics, we could discuss about it.

and yes, i would like to know about other ppl research interest as well, what they doing, how they gonna do it and such. =)

btw does anyone have motivational movie suggestion? sometimes its really easy to get de-motivated when doing phd. haha

Nice project..
I am a 1st year PhD student at Australian National University..My research area is protein engineering and crystallography..
My main methods for protein engineering are directed evolution which mimics the process of protein evolution and rational design..
These methods are used to improve enzyme properties and for my case predict bacterial antibiotic resistance uprising...

That is cool man, from few reading on net, it seems there is two way for protein engineering? rational design and directed evolution. So correct me if im wrong, u are currently working on directed evolution to mimics rational design way of working?

Im abit blur on these, hahaha im pretty bad with bio n chem. But your topic sounds cool, d purpose is to improve enzyme properties for antibiotic resistance right? So far how your PhD man? Im gonna admit, im kinda stuck at Kalman Filtering for a month here, doing matlab codes on my own, to work with multidimensional Kalman Filtering. Sigh sometimes, well not sometimes, most of d times, i feel kinda noob and stupid. lolz my frens sed, its normal in PhD life, u will always feel like an idiot when learn about some new stuff, and when no one around to teach, its easy to be misled if reading materials are not sufficient (which is in my case) haha.

3rd year PhD student here. I'm from Streeling University doing research in Pyschohistory. Working on a statistical predictive analysis on collective human behavior based on specific events. I should be coming out with my probability set soon enough.

haha...not quite right..directed evolution mimics the process of evolution where mutations occurs randomly whereas rational design is the mutation you do the the DNA with the desired mutation...central dogma of gene expression is DNA->RNA->protein..so the mutation would translate into the protein..

protein engineering generally is to improve enzyme properties...such as better thermostability, better solubility, or substrate preference...
For my case..i'm investigating the uprising of bacterial resistance towards antibiotic...the enzyme responsible for most of the resistance is beta-lactamses..
But they have different activity towards different antibiotics..so my job is to predict how would the enzyme evolve so that the data could be used in designing new antibiotic drug by chemistry people..



This post has been edited by highwind85: Jun 6 2010, 07:03 PM

Streeling University.

yeah..nothing came up except Striling University in Scotland...
http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=U...ling+University

Haha. Okay, I'm done pulling your leg here. Streeling University is a fictional institute in The Foundation Series from Isaac Asimov. So is psychohistory.

I am a 3rd year PhD student for real though. Monah University (Sunway branch), dealing with a semantic form of Simultaneous Localization and Mapping based on Tamura Textures.

It's boring s--t, though. I totally wish I really could do Psychohistory.

haha...you got me...

Didn't turn out like how I planned, anyways. Sorry about that.

Anyway, for spikyz. You're not alone in feeling dumb and stupid. I felt that for the whole 3 years I've been here. And since my supervisor isn't one of the more "popular" ones around here, I've been doing my research all by myself as well. The rest of my PhD colleagues get to confer with each other once in a while.

Gee, thx for the introduction to the lonely world of PhD. Well, I'm just curious to what was/is your reason to pursuing your PhD? Is it for promotions, purely academic interest, or a geeky way to pickup chicks?
I do intend on pursuing my masters, mainly because I miss studying. Working for 5 years makes you wish you were back in university doing your thesis and project presentation. I don't know about PhD yet. Unless there is a significant chance of promotion for PhD holders, I probably would only conider PhD if I'm planning to be a uni lecturer someday.

God, I totally wish doing a PhD would get me chicks. Maybe if I did my research in The Mystery Method, maybe.

With a Masters, you'd most likely improve your chances at employment, but doing a PhD pretty much means you'll be either in the academic or research line. You'd be overqualified for a "regular" job in the corporate sector, and it would have been a waste of time doing a doctorate anyways.

Doing my PhD cause I absolutely love lecturing. Hate research though, but that *might* change once I graduate and get to research on what I like, rather than just choosing the best out of a very limited pool.

Plus, I like waking up at whatever time I like. And the student life.

Hahah im in abit blur state when u describing your stuff there, i quite understand abit here and there, but not the full thing. But it sounds awesome bro!


Monah university? lolz another prank here? hehe Monash Uni rite? i been there for a Chess tournament, few few years back

hahah, i understand that "popular" situation...my prof could consider one of the popular one, but he has around 13 PhD students under him (full time and part time) So most of the time i felt like left out. Hahaha plus it seems he attracted more to girls project jk jk


Lonely world of PhD..agree on this.. mainly bcoz u do your stuff which not many ppl in the world doing it.. and when u talk to ppl, if get into d details it seems nobody could understand u.. haha an advantage/disadvantage depends on which view u look at it. Well for promotions? i would say erk...to what level u will be promote? haha Dr->Prof? for chicks? well i dont think bimbo girls will fall into u, however u will attract the sophisticated and smart girls most of d time

my reason is, i done internship in my first , second and final year in uni, 3 summer breaks and with 3 different company...what i can say.. im not really into working world..its easily get pretty boring for me..plus i dont like d 9am-5pm time line, haha for PhD/Lecturer or research, u can come whenever u want as long u get ur work done! haha most of d times, ideas come out when im in the field playing football or when i hanging out with my frens, stressing out infront of the table wont do for me. hehe

Plus i like uni life style, however its pretty sad..coz u see every year your frens graduating and u still at uni with ppl much younger than u..can call him adik already. (im not that old, 23 only =P ). However good side is, u can see many fresh and hot chicks every year, horray! hehe

This post has been edited by spikyz: Jun 6 2010, 08:08 PM

Depending on what field you wanna go in...PhD in economics would render you overqualified for most of the jobs available whereas PhD in chemistry or biology is essential so that you could work in a certain position..
Pick-up chicks? Other PhD chicks maybe...but normal chicks in society...rarely..lol

Sorry for the typo. Yeap, Monash Uni.

VMSmith may i know much about your field of study?

Depends lolz, overqualified staff sometimes is super cool =) btw i think PhD is cool, coz u can build your own consultant company, where u can be d boss and do what u want, what u like in stuff u really good at =)

Autonomous mobile robots. Dealing only with the software side though. I'm coding with MATLAB as well.

Mobile robots, cool. For what type of purposes? and is there any specific algorithm used?

Localization and mapping, through Content-Based Image Retrieval techniques.

meaning by using vision of the robot? using camera eh? my fren doing about the same thing. His project name is WALL-E (true story). haha

any movement/pathfinding algorithms?

in a nutshell, my phd is about creating a constructive learning environment in the architectural design studio by augmenting it with an asynchronous online community forum. this would be under architecture education and virtual environment.

does anyone actually understood what i just said?

In short, promote learning in a study by having a forum for ppl to share.

Not at this stage. My research is meant to classify locations based on semantic information of images, and just solely images. All the work is done by camera.

The reasoning behind this is so that it can be ported from mobile robots to humans, without having to code for the specific platform that drives the camera.

LYN???

Cool! Bunch of people doing research studies. Currently, am pursuing my master studies by research. More on structure and material topic. With hope that I be able to produce the governing model for the buckling of triaxial weave fabric composites which consider various components and effects including the contribution of thermal load from the total potential energy method.

Am pretty much stuck with my non linear formulation right now. To date, its has been 34 days am stuck with the problem.

My morale are pretty much struck down right now.

Dont worry dude, im stuck at my codes as well, a month or so, and d best part, last meeting my prof ask me to do something which i have done before and like nullify my current work. hahahha

btw my advise, i just finish dl "homeless to harvard", it will help with ur morale

promote a different type of learning than the existing one, yeah. one biggest difference that i'm introducing is the absence of teachers/tutors in the studio.

almost.

www.tanggam.com

am not phd student yet, but planning to. very soon perhaps.

i completed my 2 and half year of MSc from UPM.
1.5 years for completing research while anothe 1 year for
thesis writing, viva, graduating procedure, senate etc etc

i'm so into image processing+mobile robot.

done some feature extraction methods and experimented with various classification, includes ANN, PCA LDA, hierarchical clustering, and SVM.

well Mr CVSmith, we are in the same field. and you have a very good research. =)

Thanks. Hopefully, it'll be DR. VMSmith soon.

Not to burst your bubble though, but I pretty much lost interest in doing robotics. Once my thesis is done and I've racked up some R&R, I plan to do research in other fields. Hopefully Game Design or Game Theory. (Yes, I know those two are VERY different from each other.

like i said before, PhD is ticket. right?

@exsaga, i will be using Support Vector Machine as well =)


Bro hidan? why are u butthurt? dont u see, ppl start discussing about their phd stuff here? and for example exsaga , VMSmith and me have something in common in algorithm? which soon we will be discussing and this is PhD topic nway.

p/s: i feel sorry for your kind of mindset bro hidan =)

Ho3...I did watch autobiography movie if my morale are down, just for inspiration. Preferably, 'beautiful mind' as one of my choice!!

Phd is for people who are interested in academic line or in research industry. However, the quality of Phd people in Malaysia can be disputed, although I admit I am too stupid for a phd

This post has been edited by soul2soul: Jun 11 2010, 07:32 PM

Or you could try watching "Numb3rs" as well. Though Charlie Epps is quite hard to live up to compared to real people.

This post has been edited by VMSmith: Jun 11 2010, 07:48 PM

Our gov target 18000 Phd Holder by 2015.=D

we always welcome people to dispute PhDs, especially their theses.

@spikyz, are u using SVM for classification as well?

yup beautiful mind is a good movie. Scary one as well since i think he telling d truth n gov makes him look like crazy to deny the facts ;p

yup. Kernel, svm lines and such. However currently im using kalman filter. Perhaps by next month or two i will use svm.

Hari Seldon? Is that you?

I don't agree. You would need other skills as well eg: business/ management skills then you can survive. after all it is a business. So even if you hold a phd degree, its also good to have other skills.

Not to mention that you don't even need a Masters to start a consulting company. My ex-boss graduated with a regular Comp. Sci. degree.

not yet, but probably in the future...

i feel so stupid now after reading this thread.haha.

Hopefully a partnership with someone who good at business? haha, yup im agree we need to have other skills. But what im trying to say, many of prof i know, have a consultancy firm, either their own or a partnership with a businessman. So that is the answer for d most common question ppl ask to a phd holder "do u want to become a lecturer?", actually there is alot of option other than being a lecturer. =)



btw @zstan, i feel stupid everyday, haha reading new topic or new journals, sometimes make me feel very noobbb..

Are you in Faculty of Science, School of CS?

gosh, i know how you feel. when I first started labwork, I feel like going crazy for the first four month, I can even do the normal routine protocol right...most of the time is because of simple silly reason. after one puzzle down, another one puzzle come to break you motivation down. It's not that bad. I love the working hours. postgrad (i'm doing MSc tho) is nice, feels liike being payed for studying.

all you guys researched are fully funded by the uni..............right?

Mine funded by government grant I believe. yeah, it's government grant. But my living expenses and school fees funded by uni itself. (i'm count? because i only MSc...lol)

Hey guys, starting my PhD soon in English Literature. Going to look at Erikson, Piaget and Fowler. Maybe Kohlberg too. Probably revisit my MA on George Orwell or find a new text.

zstan: yeap. Monash Uni. pretty much funded all of my research. Of course, 99% of the costs go to registering for conferences, booking hotel rooms for conferences, and flight tickets for conferences...

Apparently, it might not be as easy over in Monash Clayton, one of my PhD friends over there has actually had to fund his own conference fees. Twice!

This post has been edited by VMSmith: Jul 8 2010, 03:24 PM

I am considering study phd, too.
I had decided to get my master in Japan.

Now, I am AI student in UM, last semester.

Doing my thesis on Stereo Vision on Robot Navigation. Mine is a 3-person project. My part is on mapping. Now very headache.
Trying to do map merging. My current approach is to use distance between object to merge the map. But, recently found too much unreliability...
Now, I trying to use image registration to do the map merging...

I have a question here:
Is it ok if my master thesis is the enhancement of the method during undergrad thesis?

This post has been edited by Dark Lord: Jul 8 2010, 02:53 PM

That's okay Dark Lord, if mapping was easy, it would have been solved decades ago. Just keep at it.

And yes, I do believe that if the enhancement is substantial enough, it will be enough for a Masters thesis.

Should not be a problem, my master thesis is sort continuation of my undergrad thesis + continuation of previous MSc students + whole lot of new stuffs that makes me feels so small cos i dunno so much.

Well, im under Faculty of Engineering actually, under AI department. I cant remember d full name dat my prof used to describe the department, haha


Thats reasearch right? u tot u got something, then another challenge coming in, over n over. Sometimes it is fun , but most of d time its annoying and demotivating, haha but at the end of d day, i like "playing" this game.

Me, my funding is from NSF (MOSTI), well.. i kantoi biasiswa Agong last year, i think d interviewer really hates me. seriously, and she even know my prof, so during the interview she kinda badmouth my prof alil bit and tease here and there, aih screw them la.

Yeap, I'm doing research for MSc, I still want to study, but hate going for classes. yeah...i like "playing" the game too. My supervisor once said "Face ur fear...the reward is sweet".

wow...biasiswa agong...that's a tough one...but the interview panel is not that professional though...have a friend that told me her experience during the interview..

Oh, cool, never knew there's AI Dept under Engineering.

Sweet and sour at the same time bro, haha nway how ur MSc summer project =)?

Well, not sure about that thou. my panel last time is, one datin from SIRIM, very high ranking wan (this is d one dat keep attacking me), den got another 2 fella from which uni i cant remember.

I tot its under CS as well, ahah but yeah my project, i can say AI is main part, but i do have alot of other main part belong to engineering as well =)

My friend's panel know her supervisor well (she's worked as RA while trying to secure funds to go overseas)...and the panel kept on telling her that her supervisor is very good and she should continue her PhD here and stuffs like the university really needs someone like her calibre...and thus denied her a scholarship to go overseas...

did your friend apply for other scholarships?
Sound like that panel is just giving a stupid reason to not giving out the scholarship for her only.

This post has been edited by Dark Lord: Jul 10 2010, 06:18 PM

yup...luckily she persevered and is now in the same university as i am...she is here 1 year earlier than me...
that's why i say the panel she met isn't professional...

wow.....so there are a few dr. here xD Just wanna ask a few question here
1)is there a limit time for you to complete your phd?
2)While doing ur phd,do you work or full time studying?
3)are you guys read a lots of books?except ur textbook.....
4)How old are you guys?bcoz normally i see my sch lecturer with Dr. also aunty uncle ad

1) there is depending on the university and country...Malaysia and Aus is 5 years for full time...US is longer
2) depends on what field you're in...if you have to do your research in the lab, it's difficult to work other than lab demonstrator or tutor...
3) more on research articles i guess...text books are for fundamentals...these are long established knowledge...research articles have latest developments on the other hand..
4) i'm 25 this year...if things go smoothly, i should graduate in 3-4 years..(this could be affected by the PhD systems of different countries as well)

Hm. It normally takes about 3 - 4 year for a full-time student in Monash to graduate.

I'll be 30 later this year. Our first PhD in IT just graduated. At the age of 25. Yikes!

wow...25...that's really young...

so many phd here? seems like u go to pasar malam simply talk to someone they will be a phd holder..

not that much if you consider our number here versus the number of total lyn members....besides, all of us are doing something different...

wow....and i wanna ask do guys work now?if didn't work,then need to wait until phd gratuate(30yrs old),go for work then only can give ur parents money lo?haha.....im noob
Does phd got fail or something?research articles is from other researcher and u guys take it for references?and i always heard about phd will do something named defend thesis,what is defend thesis?

Yup 30 yrs old only work. So old only start earning money and before that parents need survive on their own. When 30 yrs old come out work oso wont get high pay because is consider non experrience worket just like those fresh grad 23 yrs old come out work.

Defend thesis is to get the phd degree where u need to present your research and panel will question your research.

It is possible to fail...if the panel decides that your research is up to standard, you'll get MPhil instead of PhD...
Haha..at least you depend on your own for the PhD studies...If you are good with financial management, you'll be able to save enough money to buy house or car.
I personally have a friend who studied his PhD in USM....He already bought his 1st property..

"PhD grads are considered fresh grads"
Yup..no question about that..but the salary you get definitely isn't 23 year old fresh grad salary...just that your salary will be lower compared to your peers who has more than 5 years of working experience..In malaysia fresh PhD grads earn around rm4k -rm5k, depending on field and position..

I doubt u can buy a house from saving phd allowance. Maybe low cost flat that cost rm40k? A car maybe but im sure is not like those ppl already working.

I see the people i know once they start working maybe after 1 or 2 yrs start buying honda city and big big cars

He is my best friend...a condominium worth rm300k...you can do it if you manage well..

then his parents must be rich or he got help in somewat.. no way someone who is not yet working can afford to buy that. Rubbish if u say he save up phd money as much as 300k.

As far as i know highest allowance can get is rm2500 from NSF. Even if u save up everything and dont use at all u can only manage to get 2500 X 12 X 3 = 90k

Or maybe he did his phd for 10 yrs

It is not impossible just because you don't know how..i know his family and his family is not the extremely rich type..and his parents has two younger children to support..
are you thinking you can only buy a house with only cash? even a rich person isn't going to pay the house in full with cash...he started his PhD last year..

So MPhill is the "King" in academic world ad,right?haha.....is gonna mad if somebody get tat,probabbly should sacrifice most of the entertainment >.<
oh....so now i know why my cousin go for phd,bcoz i forgot that he told me he lazy go for work,then he just continue his education until now 29 without working b4 xD
Government will give allowance for phd candidates?everyone who pursuing their phd?or only some race

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Added on July 11, 2010, 7:55 pmwhat is his research about?
Aren't like master,which got research and go for class and exam to choose.....phd only study with research method right?

This post has been edited by crazylkm: Jul 11 2010, 07:55 PM

MPhil is the research degree for Masters...it's the inferior form of PhD....if a person gets that, all his hard work throughout the years would go to waste..

you have to apply for it...no one is going to give you money without effort...there are a few ways to do PhD:

1) self funded (only a fool would do that especially for PhD in overseas), still possible with local IPTA though..
2) Research grant funded - the PI pay you to do the research...but bear in mind that tuition fees are not included and the allowance is quite little..
3) fellowship and scholarship - this is the more common method of funding...almost all overseas PhD students are funded by scholarship..if not, your expenses could easily hit rm100k per year including tuition fee...

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Added on July 11, 2010, 8:03 pmhe's doing medical research on breast cancer...depends on universities and systems, some masters do not have classes, some have..

PhD in the US has classes and exams..that's why their PhD takes longer time to complete...and depending on how you fair in the exam, you could do PhD if you score well and only masters if you didn't do so good...it's 2+1 years (Masters) and 2+3 years (PhD) system...

This post has been edited by highwind85: Jul 11 2010, 08:03 PM

Yeah. He's getting his PhD at an age when I got my Masters!

He's super-smart though. Got really, REALLY good results after finishing his degree with 1st class honors. Then joined the PhD programme straight after that.

Yeah...doing a PhD straight with 1st class does save you a few years...but to graduate at 25 is really impressive...

I really would like to meet someone who can fund their own PhD studies! Needless to say, everyone here on the PhD programme here in Monash is obviously on some form of scholarship. Our tuition fees is around RM90k over 3 years.

All this talk about getting MPhil after 3 years is giving me the jitters already, I probably should not be post here so often and get back to my research!

Eh studying in Monash got scholarship?

Isnt Monash private uni and they are out on making money? If giving u scholarship it defeat the purpose or their instituion...to make money... wonder what they thinking

Haha...there are people that fund their studies...in IPTA of course...tuition fees in UKM is rm2000+ per semester...other IPTAs are roughly the same...
But i agree with you...My fees are AU$28k per year and projected living cost is AU$22k per year...it would really be nuts to sponsor my own studies...

Haha...don't be too worry about the MPhil thingy..it's just what written on paper...so far i have never seen one...most of the time, if your project isn't getting much progress, the supervisory panel would have already advised you to change from PhD to MPhil...so don't worry to much...

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Added on July 11, 2010, 8:29 pmpostgraduate programs aren't like undergraduate programs...it might be true that monash or any other IPTS milk their student dry..
but postgraduate programs especially research programs, they have research grants...some funds comes from MOSTI and other sources...and to make sure there are future fundings, the university needs people to work on projects...thus scholarships for research students..
this is the case for most of the universities around the work..getting a student to work on the project is far cheaper than hiring a postdoc to do it..

This post has been edited by highwind85: Jul 11 2010, 08:29 PM

i c.. so MOSTI and other agency also fund private unis.. I thought they only fund public cuz private already rich

What highwind said.

Also, PhD students form a very small fraction of the student population. Pretty much almost all of the money making is from the undergraduates, so you could say I'm only recovering what was spent on my earlier education there. haha

Oooo....

Phd is small fraction? how about masters?

So how is the post grad lab like in Monash? How many students will usually be under the prof/lecturer?

How the life of postgrad in Monash? Like u guys have progress report or any other activities?

Share share.. hehe.. interested to know cuz i think private shud be better than public.. public lecturer all pigs only know how to minum kopi

haha...lol-ed at the pig part..i agree that some of the lecturers are lazy...however public universities still has more funding than IPTS...especially the Big Four...
Not sure about other fields, but for engineering, physic, bio fields, public universities are better equipped...DNA sequencers, Mass spectrometer are not cheap...

yup.. thats why wonder how different is private and public uni in postgrad studies

Haha, of course small fraction la. A lot of people prefer to go out to work after 12 - 13 years of studying.

For Masters, I can only speak for the School of IT. There's actually less Masters students than in the PhD programme for reasons I won't reveal publicly.

Regarding postgrad life in Monash, I suppose its no different that postgrad life anywhere else. A lot boils down to who your supervisor is. Some of them have tons of students under them and no time. Some have only a couple of students. Some demand weekly progress reports, and some don't see you more than once a month.

Yes, I know the public's perception about private institutes being "better". But again, like highwind said, public institutes are definitely better funded. Monash's campus here is only 1 branch out of 10. Another one is in South Africa (the students there actually started and finished a week early cause of the World Cup, by the way!), and the rest is in Melbourne. With 8 out of 10 branches over there, they have more funds, and hence, better equipment. All of our LHC colliders and perpetual motion machines can only be found in Melbourne. Haha

Choice of supervisor is also another issue we have to contend with. Over here, about half of our lecturers still haven't obtained their doctorate, so they aren't allow to supervise PhD students, no matter how experienced they are.

This post has been edited by VMSmith: Jul 11 2010, 09:37 PM

ah.. means to study phd in our monash will have less supervisor choice?? then supervisor ma burden wif students cuz not enuff...


then if dont have the equipments how do u guys cary on wif the research?